Article: SUMMER VACATION AT AN ISLAND UNIVERSE

A clear, warm late-spring night is special. It entices you to sit outside under the stars and look into the depths of the universe. It invites you to think about the cosmic picture.

All the stars you see, without exception, are members of our disk- shaped Milky Way galaxy. It extends 100,000 light-years across and, in our neighborhood, is 3,000 light-years thick. Our sun sits 26,000 light-years from the galaxy's center.

When we look at the Milky Way's glowing band, we are viewing no more than 6,000 light-years into the disk edgewise. Unfortunately, intervening gas and dust prevent us from seeing its massive star- packed center. Tonight, when we look straight up, we are gazing directly out of ...

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